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Burton was convicted in a rural Georgia court of raping three teen-age girls and sodomizing two of them.  In Jan. 2002, the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the reversal of his conviction by a federal district court on the grounds of incompetent defense counsel and unfair prosecution.  The girls originally described their attacker as having a deeply pockmarked face, stocky build, brown eyes, and brownish hair.  Burton is 6 feet tall and slim, with blue eyes, blond hair, and clear skin.  Near the time of the assault, he did have a severe case of poison ivy, which infected his face, and this fact may have led to a “pockmarked” description.  The victims identified Burton in a photo lineup and said their attacker drove a white Toyota, a car that Burton owned.

Medical exams were not performed on two of the girls because they had taken showers immediately after returning home following the alleged attack.  The third victim was examined and the medical report stated she showed "no evidence of recent sexual entry."  This report was suppressed at trial.  One of the victims’ high school teachers stated to a private investigator that the three victims were notorious liars.  She refused to testify for fear of being socially ostracized.

A defense investigator re-enacted the crime and reported that it was impossible to drive the distance to the alleged rape scene in the time period during which the victims allege they were driven and also systematically raped and sodomized. Two days before the attack, Burton had eight genital warts surgically removed.  The surgeon testified that after undergoing this procedure "sex would have been the last thing on his [Burton’s] mind."  Burton was freed in May 2002 and his new trial is scheduled for Feb. 2003.  (Case Facts) (CM)

Sixteen-year-old Cathleen Crowell feared she had become pregnant after having consensual sex with her boyfriend and made a rape allegation as a plausible explanation to tell her parents.  It had not occurred to her that police would pursue her case.  Police made her make a composite sketch, and Crowell says they pressured her to pick Gary Dotson from a mug book, pointing out how much he resembled the sketch.  Dotson was arrested even though he then had a mustache that he could not have grown in the five days since the alleged incident.  Crowell identified Dotson as her rapist at trial in July 1979 and he was convicted.  The trial also featured false and misleading forensic evidence, as well as alibi testimony from four of Dotson's friends, whom the prosecutor branded as "liars."

Crowell subsequently married and moved to New Hampshire where she became a born-again Christian.  In early 1985, she told her pastor that she was riddled with guilt because she had sent an innocent man to prison.  On her behalf, the pastor contacted a Wisconsin lawyer who tried to resolve the matter, but prosecutors were unresponsive.  However, news about the recantation soon appeared in the Chicago Sun Times, taking up most of the front page.  Governor Thompson said he did not believe Crowell's recantation and an appeals court would not overturn the conviction.

The public supported Dotson and Thompson tried to assume a middle ground by paroling Dotson.  However, Dotson’s parole was revoked two years later when his wife accused him of assault.  On Christmas Eve, 1987, Thompson granted Dotson another “last chance” parole, but it was revoked two days later when Dotson was arrested in a barroom fight.  In 1988, Dotson had DNA tests performed, which exonerated him.  He got his conviction overturned on Aug. 14, 1989 and the prosecution declined to retry him.  Many later reports on DNA testing listed Dotson as the first convicted person in the U.S. and the world to be exonerated by DNA evidence.  However, priority to judicial exoneration goes to David Vasquez of Virginia who was exonerated and released on Jan 4, 1989.  Unlike Dotson’s, Vasquez’s case was little reported.  (NL) (IP002) (PDI) (DNA History) (AJ)  [12/05]

James Giles, John Giles, and Joseph Johnson Jr., all blacks, were convicted of raping Joyce Roberts, a white teenager.  They were all sentenced to death.  The prosecution withheld evidence that the victim was highly promiscuous and that she had later falsely accused two other men of raping her prior to the defendants’ trials.  The victim initially told police that John Giles had not raped her, but later claimed that all three defendants raped her.  She apparently had a motive to lie because she was on probation.  She had not gone to the police on her own, but rather was discovered by them.

Because of the withheld evidence, the Giles brothers had their convictions vacated, but the Maryland Court of Appeals reinstated their convictions.  On appeal, the U.S. Supreme Court in 1967 voted 5-4 not to uphold the convictions.  The Giles brothers were released the same year.  They could not be retried because Roberts refused to testify against them again.  Governor Askew pardoned Johnson in 1968.  (Maryland’s Mockingbird Case) (Giles v. Maryland)  [9/07]

Villasana was convicted of the kidnapping and rape of Judith Ann Lummis.  Lummis, who was white, had described her assailant as a Hispanic in his early 20's.  She identified Villasana from a photo lineup that contained five white men and himself, the only Hispanic.  However, Villasana was 45 years old.  Following conviction, DNA tests produced the profile of an unknown male, results which exonerated Villasana in 2000.

In 2005, the unknown DNA profile was matched to a prisoner in the Ozark Correctional Center.  When interviewed the prisoner said that he was having an affair with Lummis at the time of her alleged rape, and had sex with her the very night she reported the rape.  According to the prisoner, after Lummis' husband questioned why she was late getting home, she made-up her kidnapping and rape story on the spur of the moment so her husband wouldn’t find out she was cheating on him.

Investigators were initially unsuccessful at locating Lummis to confirm the story as she was on probation and had skipped reporting.  However, a background check revealed that Lummis had made a nearly identical kidnapping report in Aurora, Missouri against another man that was proven to be false prior to his trial.  After Lummis was arrested for violating her probation, she confirmed in 2007 that her accusation against Villasana was a hoax.  Lummis cannot be prosecuted for perjury as the statute of limitations for it had run out.  (JD38 p5) (IP069)  [5/08]

Christina Heaslet Beard accused a fellow University of Akron student, Nathaniel “Nate” Lewis, of raping her in her dorm room.  Several weeks prior to Lewis’ trial, someone anonymously mailed Lewis photocopied excerpts of Heaslet’s diary.  The excerpts were highly exculpatory of Lewis.  They included, “I think I pounced on Nate because he was the last straw... I'm sick of men taking advantage of me... and I'm sick of myself for giving in to them.  I'm not a nympho like all those guys think.  I'm just not strong enough to say no to them.  I'm tired of being a whore.  This is where it ends.”

After Heaslet was ordered to produce the diary, the trial judge reviewed it.  The diary also indicated a financial motive for the rape accusation:  “Speaking of money, I’m suing Nate.  I’m desperate for money!  My consience (sic) wouldn’t allow me to do that before, but I’m going to do whatever I have to to get out of debt.”  The judge excluded the most relevant parts of the diary from being introduced at trial.  He ruled that they were barred under Ohio’s rape shield law.  Faced with a conflict between, “he said the sex was consensual,” and “she said it was rape,” the jury convicted Lewis.

On appeal, the federal Sixth Circuit Court overturned Lewis’ conviction in 2002, ruling that the trial judge improperly interfered with Lewis’ right to confront his accuser.  The prosecution then dropped charges.  In 2004, a judge granted Lewis a declaration of innocence.  The judge cited several factors:  (1) Beard invited Lewis to her dorm room.  (2) She drank alcohol in Lewis' presence.  (3) She called her roommate to ensure she and Lewis would be alone.  (4) She took a birth control pill in front of Lewis.  The judge also wrote, “... Heaslet had several sex partners and occasionally had intercourse on first dates, which casts doubt on her previous assertions of only engaging in meaningful relationships.”  In 2005, Lewis was awarded $662,000, although $250,000 of it was fees for his lawyers.  (Akron BJ) (JD30 p16)  [9/07]